Spammen Verböten

[unixronin]

Germany is preparing to start making life hard for spammers ... and that's as in hard time.  A new draft law features heavy fines for both spammers and companies that use their services, with prison terms for the worst offenders.

Meanwhile in Iraq, thousands of Marines are being told it's their patriotic duty to pray for George Bush, complete with mail-in coupons to certify that they've been doing so.  (At least they're not being told to pray TO him yet.)

Ireland plans a referendum to change Irish citizenship law, which currently grants automatic citizenship to any baby born in the country regardless of the nationality of the parents -- the only EU nation to do so.  Hmmmm, as far as I know, the US does that too.....

Dateline Miami, Florida, where the Crown Prince of Spain and his fiancee passed through Thursday evening with their official bodyguards, to make a flight connection enroute from the Bahamas to Madrid ... and where the Transportation Safety Authority decided it was necessary to screen and search them both.  It has apparently not been decided yet whether Spain will file an official diplomatic complaint.  Gee, look, foreign relations at work!

And last but not least, speaking of your tax dollars at work, the Bush white house has released a memo showing that it was clearly known Osama bin Laden was planning and conducting terrorist actions in the US.  The BBC's Jon Leyne says it may be no coincidence that the White House has chosen to release this document at a time in the weekend when most Americans are not following the news very closely.  Meanwhile, the FBI has accused National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice of perjury regarding her testimony before the 9/11 commission.  The FBI assertion is that Rice is cooking the numbers to make it appear that far more resources were being devoted to al-Qaeda than there actually were; Among other disputed statements, Rice apparently bundled investigations of other organizations, and even simple criminal investigations, into her claimed "70 separate investigations of al-Qaeda cells" before 9/11.

Update:

Fixed a missing link in the last story.

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[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

And that is becoming our downfall.